TEAM PATERSON CROWNED BOOST NATIONAL GRAND SLAM CHAMPIONS

Posted on 17 December 2018

Team Paterson claimed their first Grand Slam win and also their first title since their new line up was formed at the start of this season while making Grand Slam history as they beat defending Boost National Champions and fellow Scots Team Mouat 4-3 at an extra end.

Bruce Mouat’s defending champions had taken an impressive 100% record into what was an historic all Scottish final, before skip Ross Paterson and team mates Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Michael Goodfellow avenged their 7-1 loss to the European Champions in the pool stages by emerging victorious this time around to keep the Boost National trophy in Scottish hands.

“It feels awesome to have won our first Grand Slam title. We have had a good week and it was always going to be hard to win the final but we are just delighted that we managed to get over the line,” said skip Ross Paterson.

“We said at the start of the final that if we could get a shot for the game at an extra end we would take it and our game plan paid off. We are delighted to finish the year in the way we have. It is the result of not just weeks and months but years of hard work for every member of this team, so it is nice that it is all starting to come to fruition,” he said.

Team Paterson’s lead and 2014 Olympic silver medallist Michael Goodfellow said after their victory at the Conception Bay Arena, which enjoyed sell out crowds throughout the week, “In Newfoundland you get a very knowledgeable curling crowd, so it is where you really want to play your curling and to win in front of a crowd like that is definitely a great feeling.”

Fellow Olympian Kyle Waddell who was a member of the 2018 Team GB representatives in PyeongChang, is also delighted with his first Grand Slam win.” It has been a good week. We had a few low points with two losses on the bounce as a result of poor performances, but we had a good chat and knew what we had to do and came out and did the job.

“It is always good to get a win against Niklas Edin and then we followed that up with a win over Glenn Howard. To play Bruce and his team in the final, especially after the year they have had as European Champions now proves a point, that we are also one of those good teams and that is what we have been working towards since the start of the season and this is a great starting point for us,” Waddell added.

The two Scottish line-ups saw off the last three world champions in the knock out stages. Mouat’s men overcame the home favourites skipped by Brad Gushue, the 2017 world champion in the quarter finals – their second win at this event over the highest ranked Canadian team in the world - then 2016 world champion Kevin Koe in the semi final.

Paterson meanwhile, got the better of Niklas Edin’s reigning world champions in the quarter final before beating four times world champion and current British Curling programme coach Glenn Howard in the semis.

Mouat, who entered the record books as the youngest skip to win a Grand Slam whilst his team were also the first British and Scottish men’s team to win a Slam title when they won this event last year, said after the 2018 tournament: “We are really gutted not to get that win there. We had been playing so well all week and just didn’t bring our A game to that final, which is quite a frustrating way to finish a tournament after such a lot of highs over the week and accomplished a lot playing against top Canadian and also world class teams.

“There are however a lot of positives to take away from this week and also this year and it has been a lot of fun with our team which is still getting used to Tour life and being full time curlers and the Europeans was definitely a highlight for me. We are really starting to see ourselves as up there with the world class teams and we are doing this as a unit and will use this latest result as another springboard for future targets.”